A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM SONY PICTURES TELEVISION

Cynopsis: DIGITAL
06.05.13

Good morning. It’s Wednesday, June 5, 2013, and this is your first early morning digital briefing.

Amazon has inked a multiyear licensing deal with Viacom to offer “hundreds of TV shows and thousands of TV episodes” on Prime Instant Video. The terms cover programming from Nick, Nick Jr., MTV, and Comedy Central, as well as a selection of Viacom-owned shows that will be exclusive to Prime, including kids shows like Dora the Explorer, Blue’s Clues, and The Backyardigans. Select shows from Nick and Nick Jr. will also be available on Kindle FreeTime Unlimited, a service from Amazon that allows kids to access their favorite shows, movies, games, apps, and books all in one place. “Kids shows are one of the most watched TV genres on Prime Instant Video,” said Bill Carr, VP/Digital Video and Music for Amazon. Carr also added that Amazon plans to bring more shows from Viacom networks in the future. The Amazon Prime Instant Video library now offers more than 41,000 movies and TV episodes.
— In other words: In May, Netflix removed a bunch of Viacom titles, including Dora the Explorer and SpongeBob SquarePants, from its streaming library, mostly because it did not wish to meet Viacom’s asking price. If this continues to happen, where Netflix (or Amazon) drop certain titles, only for the other to pick it up, we’re looking at a SVOD market in which consumers are less focused on picking one or the other, and more likely to pick both — which I’m sure both Netflix and Amazon would be more than okay with.

Heineken has launched a new branded web series tied to its latest global ad campaign, ‘Voyage.” Titled Dropped, the beer brand deposits men in remote locations, arming them with nothing but basic supplies and directions to get back home. Challenges will span everything from rough terrain to unusual modes of transport. The first “voyage” is available online at Heineken.com as well as the brand’s YouTube channel and Facebook page. New adventures will show up every three weeks, with each story lasting three episodes.

REGISTER for Cynopsis Digital’s BIG Monetization Summit, an all-day extravaganza at the Time Warner Center on June 18. Co-produced by yours truly, this event will spotlight what’s working when it comes to monetizing video content online and across an increasing number of devices. And we’re not restricting the discussion to just TV or just native web video programming; we’re going to talk about it all.

Gaiam Vivendi Entertainment (GVE) will handle distribution for Random Media content in the US and Canada across all physical, digital, and TV platforms. Random Media is a newly launched multimedia production and acquisition outfit from Eric Doctorow, a longtime Hollywood executive at companies such as Paramount, Miramax, and Fox. Random Media will look to acquire titles in specific genres such as faith-based films and other inspirational programming, urban action films, and “cherished lifestyle and sports franchises.”

Fox Sports Media Group (FSMG) has landed the multiplatform rights to all UEFA Euro 2016 and 2018 FIFA World Cup European qualifying matches. FSMG also plans to sublicense half of the game inventory to ESPN. FSMG and ESPN each will have access to more than 270 qualifying matches and international friendlies from September 2014 through 2018. Both networks will offer them across their linear and digital offerings, including Fox Sports Go and WatchESPN. Fox Sports already has the rights to the 2018 World Cup, while ESPN has the rights to UEFA Euro 2016.

If you’re a cricket fan, ESPN plans to stream live games from the upcoming ICC Champions Trophy tournament on ESPN3 in the US. Reaching more than 85 million households, ESPN3 is available online at WatchESPN.com and on smartphones and tablets via the WatchESPN app, as well as through the ESPN for Xbox Live app. The tournament begins this Thursday and runs through Sunday, June 23.

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE

NBC News Digital Group has signed on Shell to exclusively sponsor the second-screen experience for Meet the Press on the Zeebox app. The sponsorship, brokered by Mediacom, will begin on July 1 and will cover the full second-screen experience, which includes behind-the-scenes photos, additional program-related content, and interactive polls tied to the topic being discussed on the show at that time. Shell will also use Zeebox’s proprietary ad product, SpotSynch, to deliver a synchronized ad within the app while a Shell ad plays on TV. Per the announcement, “viewers will be able to engage with the ad and the Shell brand message in a highly contextual way that never takes them out of the show experience itself,” which implies this will be more than a mobile pre-roll.

Worldwide smartphone shipments will reach 958.8 million units by the end of 2013, according to a new forecast from the International Data Corporation (IDC). If this forecast holds up, then it would be a 32.7% increase over the 722.5 million units shipped during 2012. This is largely fueled by declining prices (average selling prices have dropped from $443 in 2011 to $372 in 2013, and are projected to fall to $309 by 2017) as well as increased demand in emerging markets, which will account for 64.8% of all smartphones shipped during 2013 (up from 43.1% in 2010). IDC says 2013 will also be the first year that smartphone shipments surpass those of feature phones, with smartphones expected to account for 52.2% of all mobile phone shipments worldwide.

A new study from mobile ad company Celtra compared the performance of rich media ads running on mobile publishers versus similar ads running on the mobile versions of social networks like Facebook and Twitter. The study analyzed 32 different rich media campaigns running the same or comparable creative to both mobile publishers and social networks. It found that social rich media ads generated 4x higher ad engagement rate, 16x higher “ad journey” completion rate, 2x higher ad engagement time, 3x higher video play rate, and 4x higher social media share rate. Standard rich media ads on mobile publishers generated 5x better engagement rates with location-based features and “slightly higher” engagement rates with galleries and presentation features.

Mike DeLuca has been named SVP/Digital for Hearst Newspapers and will join the company on June 10. “Mike’s a proven digital sales leader with deep local media experience and he will be of great benefit to all of our brands as we continue to scale our services across our local media businesses,” said Hearst Newspapers President Mark Aldam. Most recently, DeLuca was VP/Sales at Groupon. He will be based in NY.

Telescope, the audience-interaction company behind the technology used by TV shows like American Idol and The Voice, has opened a new office in the UK and has assigned Andrew Jackson, VP/Business Development, to lead it. Overseeing the new branch in London, Jackson will be responsible for the company’s UK growth.
 

Conversations with a Twitter Feed is a web series that is exactly what it sounds like, and it’s incredibly funny. The conceit is simple: comedians — some of whom you may recognize, some of whom you may not — have one-sided conversations with the Twitter streams of famous people. Comedians featured in the show have credits that range from performing/appearing on Fallon, Letterman, Conan, Comedy Central, HBO, MTV, and VH1 to writing for the likes of The Onion and CollegeHumor, to just being Talib Kweli and Andrew WK.

I was introduced to the series by its creator, Alex Mann, a comedian who has written for the likes of Nickelodeon, Funny or Die, and CollegeHumor. Alex was also a former Director at social TV analytics company Trendrr and is a Cynopsis reader, which I will assume means all the rest of you are funny as well.

Full disclosure: There are some UCB people featured in this series, and I’m a sucker for anything UCB. Because it’s hilarious, you see.

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE

Later – Sahil
Sahil Patel, Editor for Cynopsis Digital
06.05.13

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